Samueli's parents, Sala and Aron, were Polish Jewish immigrants who survived German-Nazi occupation of Europe and arrived in the United States with almost nothing.[6] Samueli stocked shelves in his family's Los Angeles liquor store and graduated from Bancroft Junior High School and Fairfax High School.[6] Samueli became interested in electronics when he took a shop class at Bancroft.

In 1991, while still working as a professor at UCLA, Samueli co-founded his company, Broadcom Corporation, with one of his former students, Henry Nicholas. Each invested $5,000 and worked out of Nicholas' Redondo Beach home, moving to Irvine four years later and took the firm public three years after that.[6] In 1998, when Broadcom became a publicly traded company, Samueli stopped working as a professor, but the UCLA Department of Electrical Engineering still maintains his name on the list of faculty.

In June 2005 he and his wife Susan bought the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim from the Walt Disney Company for $75 million. The deal also included Anaheim Arena Management, the company that operates the city-owned Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, the home of the Ducks. In 2006, Samueli announced he was changing the team's name to the Anaheim Ducks and the arena's name to the Honda Center. The Ducks were reportedly worth $188 million in 2011.[7]

Under the ownership of Samueli and his wife Susan, the Ducks won the 2007 Stanley Cup championship, becoming the first team in California to ever win the trophy.

In June 2008, the NHL indefinitely suspended Samueli as owner after he pleaded guilty to lying to U.S. securities regulators.[8] However, on November 12, 2009, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman reinstated Henry Samueli as owner of the Anaheim Ducks, citing lack of evidence and his outstanding character.[9]

The case was ultimately dismissed on December 10, 2009, by U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney.[10]

The schools of engineering at UCLA, where he is professor, and UC Irvine, were renamed after Samueli when he donated to these institutions, $30 million and $20 million, respectively, in the year 1999. Samueli's donation founded the Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Memorial Library at Chapman University, which was dedicated in 2005.[6]

The Samuelis established the Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, and the Samueli Institute for Information Biology based in Washington, D.C. Both organizations seek to research, identify and promote best practices in the field, with both the mainstream alternative medicine disciplines as well as the lesser known disciplines. Henry and Susan have also supported the world renowned John Wayne Cancer Institute’s ground-breaking research in the area of cancer prevention and treatment, which has already had a dramatic impact on cancer treatment.

The Samueli foundation has supported The Orangewood Children’s Foundation, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), Kidworks Hillview Acres, Canyon Acres, the Children’s Bureau, ChildShare, and other agencies that provide both preventative and restorative care for at-risk families and foster youth.

In addition to funding agencies serving the foster care population, the Samuelis fund other social service agencies serving underserved, at-risk populations both locally and abroad. American Jewish World Service, the International Justice Mission and Opportunity International serve critically impoverished and oppressed peoples—mostly women and children—in developing countries, regardless of their denomination or religious affiliation.

The Samueli family directs much of their philanthropic support to Jewish organizations that work to preserve Jewish history, namely programs dedicated to Holocaust history and education. The Sala and Aron Samueli Holocaust Library at Chapman University preserves ongoing testimony to the horrors of the genocide. The Library houses Holocaust artifacts as well as books and testimonies from survivors, and will serve to educate thousands of students for years to come.

Henry and Susan support Jewish organizations in both Orange County and Israel that foster and preserve Jewish community and culture, such as the Irvine-based Jewish Community Center and Tarbut V' Torah Community Day School.

On May 15, 2008, Samueli resigned as Chairman of the Board and took of a leave of absence as Chief Technology Officer after being named in a civil complaint by the SEC.[12]

On June 23, 2008, Samueli pleaded guilty for lying to SEC for $2.2 billion of backdating. Under the plea bargain, Samueli agreed to a sentence of five years probation, a $250,000 criminal fine, and a $12 million payment to the US Treasury.[13][14]

During the technology boom in the 2000s, Samueli and Broadcom co-founder Henry T. Nicholas III awarded millions of stock options to attract and reward employees. Prosecutors alleged Samueli and Nicholas granted options to others, including some other top executives but not themselves, to avoid having to report $2.2 billion in compensation costs to shareholders.[6]

Prosecutors focused on the fact that Samueli denied under oath any role in making options grants to high-ranking executives. As part of his plea agreement, Samueli admitted the statement was false, and admitting to being part of the options-granting process.[6] However, an internal Broadcom probe laid the majority of blame on Henry Nicholas and William Ruehle.

On September 8, 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney (a fellow UCLA alumnus) rejected a plea deal that called for Samueli to receive probation, writing: "The court cannot accept a plea agreement that gives the impression that justice is for sale".[15]

16 months later, on December 10, 2009, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed the case against Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli of a criminal charge of lying to investigators in a probe of improper accounting at the Irvine microchip designer, citing significant prosecutorial and police misconduct and attempts by the United States Government to coerce and intimidate Samueli and others into guilty pleas.[16]